The Daily Fuss

Mmm ... Cookies

My cousin, Kristine, made these amazing cookies to celebrate little Miss Mairin.

Because they're both gorgeous and ridiculously time-consuming to make, I felt the need to share them with you before they are little more than a memory.

Right down to the dainty, pink, gingham bow, they're almost too cute to eat, except that they're also delicious.

I am incredibly impressed with these treats, not only because they look and taste like perfection, but because I stink at baking. In fact, I hate it. I can cook my ass off, but baking ... um no. Baking involves exact science and rule-following - both of which are notably absent from the essence of ME. I simply couldn't cut it as a pastry chef.

This fact is made glaringly obvious every few years when I erase select portions of my memory, fill the holes with Norman Rockwell-esque nostalgia and attempt to bake Christmas cookies.

This year's shit-show was no exception - complete with tears, throwing burnt cookies and unbaked dough in the trash, and vowing (in earnest) never to bake again. We're still working our way through the twenty sticks of butter I procured to carry out my romantic holiday dream. Bah- Humbug, I say. NEVER again!

Why I don't dabble in baking runs on the same axiom as why I'm a lawyer and not into some other profession that required more math along the way. I could talk my way into and around anything as an English major and argue my way through a brick wall in my professional life. But, when it comes right down to two plus two - the answer is "four" no matter how much bullshit you throw at it. I really hate that. Numbers are like Kryptonite - they sap my power. So, I avoid them whenever and wherever possible.

My cousin, however, has nailed it - the exact science, the rule-following and the pastry chef-ness of it all.

Thank you for the cookies, Kristine! What a wonderful gifty.

P.S. Leighton is headed in the direction of fairies or ballerinas or ballerina fairies for her birthday party theme should anyone feel inclined to try her hand at wings or flowers or butterflies or tutus or something of that fantastical nature in the form of a delectable baked good.

Mish Mash Stash

Last February, I enthusiastically acknowledged the squeezable, organic fruit revolution.  A year later, we keep a stash of  squeezables on hand next to the Luna bars and fruit on our counter top. Leighton happily eats one or two a day for her snack or to tide her over between meals.

Plum Organics is responsible for the original Plum Tots Mish Mash. However, Lei refers to all squeezable fruit or fruit and veggie combos as "Mish Mash" and we don't correct her. It's the best name anyone has invented to describe the dilectible, organic, pureed contents of an ingeniously designed pouch.

I choose to single out Plum Organics products because they have rapidly expanded their baby and toddler food and snack offerings beyond any other company.

For babies, Plum Organics has first and second fruits and blends, training meals, cereals and puffs. And, for Tots, they offer Mish Mash, Fruity Fingerfuls and Fiddlesticks.

Leighton likes everything on the menu, but most importantly, doesn't split hairs on baby versus toddler squeezable snacks - we keep the big wooden salad bowl filled with all the flavors - up to thirty pouches, ready for picking, at any given time.

 
Unadulterated fruits and veggies that keep fresh, can travel anywhere and are packed with mighty vitamins - our kids can snack on them until they're in high-school for all we care.

JUST fruits are a perfect first food introduction for your budding eater. Simple fruit purees with smooth textures offer your baby the very best flavors and nutrition. Using only organic fruit and nothing else, the gently cooked fruits are naturally preserved in a convenient, resealable pouch that's perfect for flexible portions.

Apple, Mango, Banana, Pear, Peach and Prune.

 

Plum Baby second blends come in seven varieties: Blueberry, Pear & Purple Carrot; Sweet Potato, Corn & Apple; Spinach, Peas & Pear; Pumpkin & Banana; Pear & Mango; Peach, Apricot & Banana; Apple & Carrot.

I feel great about mixing these in with the fruit-only varieties. Sometimes it's tough to make sure a toddler gets her veggies.

 

Plum Tots Mish Mash fruit blends are pefect for toddler hands and make great on-the-go snacks. Throw a few in your bag and you are never caught without a healthy snack.

These blends come in Strawberry, Peach and Banana.

 Whole Foods carries the Plum Organics brand and so does Babies R Us and select Toys R  Us stores.

The Highland Park Toys R Us doesn't carry anything other than Gerber products, so I order Mish Mash by the six pack (or palate) from Diapers.com. They come out to about $1.50 each for a considerable amount of organic goodness. It's a good value in my book. Plus, the fact that my kids eat what we eat (just without hot spices and blended in the Beaba Babycook to suit their specific age) means that we aren't overspending on prepackaged baby food in general.

This product review conforms to the Fuss Formula.

Have you tried squeezable smashed fruits and such? Let us know what you think. Please leave a comment and share your fuss with us.

Optimization: Meal Planning

I am a process person. I gravitate toward maximizing efficiency, systematic approaches and organization in general. I wrote about this after Leighton was born clearly with more energy than I have now and continue to seek out methods for optimizing the management of our happy little home.

It is readily apparent to me that disorganization costs money. If I misplace something I need, then I have to buy it again. If the magazine subscription lapses, then it costs triple on the newsstand. If I forget to get gas before going into the city, then it costs me an extra few bucks to get home. Every time I lose the radio key to Leighton's school, they charge me twenty dollars. When the house is a mess, things get lost or broken and need to be replaced. This list is ostensibly endless.

Food is a HUGE offender. If I don't have food on hand in the morning for dinner that night, I might just order in or buy the super-expensive prepared foods at the deli. If I don't have time to take inventory and make a decent grocery list, then I wind up with moldy bread and ten extra rotten bananas a week later. If I don't have Leighton's snacks stocked at home, then she eats overpriced crap at the zoo, or store or museum or music class or wherever we are. If we're out of coffee, then Starbucks gets incredibly lucky. You get the picture.

We have managed this to some degree with meal planning while sticking to a budget. However, it was much easier when we ordered from Peapod - you can order late at night, the food is delivered and you can manage your lists with ease. However, we now live up the street from a wonderful grocery store (minus the Lulu Lemon contingent) and Peapod comes less frequently to this new house. So, I routinely forget to place my Peapod order and need to run to Sunset foods with increasing regularity.

As a way to combat this mental foolishness, I have devised a better meal planning system that will work for me, as well as Ryan, my parents, a nanny or anyone else that steps in to help us with a new baby coming. The cornerstone of my optimized meal plan (index cards) is as old-fashioned as it is reliable and I can't wait to put it to the test starting monday.

The current and soon to be outdated system is as follows:

Breakfasts, lunches and snacks are based off of an aggregate of weekly items - milk, juice, eggs, bread, chicken sausage, fruits veggies, mish-mash, crackers, lunch meat, cheese, yogurt etc. that we know we need - reduced to a weekly shopping list on yet another spread sheet.

We also have twenty one dinner meals planned and rotate seven for any given week. The ingredients and shopping list are included in the spread sheet and once we pick our seven, we shop off of said spread sheet.

This plan worked great when we were able to better manage our grocery shopping. It's just not working so well now that we make several trips each week and often run out to pick up dinner fixings at the last minute.

The solution ... index cards.

I will print the weekly shopping list for breakfasts, lunches and snacks and make sure we're stocked every sunday with those staples. That list will live on the fancy schmancy wall organizer in the kitchen, right next to the white board that holds the "All Out Of" check list for unexpected items.

 
I will reduce each dinner to an index card with the meal on one side and the shopping list of ingredients on the other.  That way, if we need to run out for a meal or two at a time, very little thought or lead time is required. These cards will also reside in the organizer for ease in grabbing them on the way to the store.

This has to work. Otherwise, it's back to the drawing board. We'll see how it goes and I'll keep you posted along the way.

Over the next three weeks, I'll decide whether my index card system flies or flops. I'm happy to share twenty-one days of meals with you, as well. In the interim, please feel free to post any tips or tricks you have for managing the ongoing task of feeding your family. 

Into the Sunset

Amongst other suburban chores, grocery shopping isn't my thing. I'm not good at it. Even when shopping online, I forget crucial elements like toilet paper, butter, soy sauce or some other deal-breaker item. Just mention grocery shopping to my husband and he will happily tell you that I suck at it.

What's worse is that when faced with the prospect of perusing real-life aisles for necessities on my list, I wind up hauling home a few hundred dollars worth of wine, cheese, magazines, greeting cards semi-sweet chocolate and other pricey must-haves. I am an absolute MORON in the grocery store.

My first trip to Sunset Foods, the self-described gourmet grocer in Highland Park, was nothing short of a disaster. Please don't misunderstand, this store has all the fancy everything I could ever want  (organic, prepared foods, awesome bakery/deli, European etc.) and some of the no-frills stuff too. It's just the whole experience that throws me over the edge.

Here's the deal: I ran in looking for a few specific items early one morning - milk, Yo Toddler!, cheese, white vinegar and tea to be exact. After forty-five seconds I realized that I was in serious breach of the dress code. The mom squad was showered, hair blown out, in full makeup and expertly decked out in full Yoga regalia. I was sure I'd wandered into a Lulu Lemon by mistake. Alas no, I have come to accept this as Sunset dress code. I was fresh from bed, hungry and improperly groomed for my Sunset debut. Boo, Jen.

I scooped up my items, minus the cheese because NONE of it was organic (gasp) and headed for the checkout. I was a few steps away from freedom when a random woman at the foot of the register aisle grabbed my cart. I jerked it back once and she didn't let go. Finally, I figured it out and let her do what she wanted - unload my groceries onto the belt for checkout. But not before throwing in a Martha Stewart Living and a Twix just to make it appear as though I wasn't finished with my cart until ... okay now.

I paid and was about to leave when the bagger asked me if I "wanted a number."  Confused, I said "What? No." and scurried away. I later learned that they give you a number so you can drive up and have your groceries loaded for you. Convenient and strange in my opinion. I see the utility in not having to load several bags of groceries into your car, but who's gonna unload them when you get home? HELL-O? DE-LIV-ERY.

The whole ordeal turned me off to say the least. Still, a lack of this and a shortage of that around the house forced my hand and I begrudgingly made several more trips to Sunset over the next few weeks.

I am pleased to report experiencing a pivotal moment in my relationship with the grocery store this week. I walked in, found the organic cheese for Lei (in the organic section dumb-ass), stealthily and efficiently made my way through the store checking the remaining items off my list. I let the unloader, checker and bagger do their jobs without assault, took a number, pulled up the Jeep to be loaded and was on my way. I felt like such a know-it-all big shot. It was actually kind of fun.

I even wore my favorite yoga pants.

What the Fuss? Nice Rack

Cute and clever - a wicked combination. Especially when we're talking about baby products. I spent the last sixteen months balancing bottles and nipples on a drying rack that resembled a warped starter set of Construx.

Why you ask? Because I didn't know any better.

When we moved, my mom showed up with a few treats for me. (Let me say that she rarely, if ever, shows up empty handed. In fact, Leighton's first move after greeting her Gaga is to rifle through her purse looking for gifts. Please remember that my mother only lives and hour away and we see her quite often. The pavlovian effect was swift).

This time, my gifties were two newAvent wide-mouth Natural Feeding bottles, a kickass bottle brush(also Avent) and the Boon Grass Drying Rack. Yes, Lei is a toddler but she still like her baba at night and I refuse to deprive her of such things until she's two. We have no baba shame in the Freeman house. Plus, she has been a straw drinker since eight months and does not like sippy cups. Hence, the baba.

I love the Avent products - made in England and beautifully designed. Still, the jackpot portion of my haul was the Boon Grass Drying Rack. It's two dishwasher-friendly pieces of fun that hold any baby item to dry completely. It's ingenious, adorable and takes a spin in the dishwasher without warping.

You can pick up your Boon Grass Drying Rack at Target for $15 - or closer to $20 elsewhere. This Fussworthy Must-Have makes a great shower gift and is not to be missed.

Just curious, at what age did your toddler give up the bottle? Parents seem to get nervous about it and my nanny said that the parents of her other charges were sheepishly wondering the same thing. Please leave a comment and share your fuss with us!

WIN IT! Happy Baby Foods and Snacks for Your Wee One

To salute the purveyors of organic beeb foods, The Daily Fuss is giving away Happy Baby organic foods and snacks meal kits to three lucky fans. Happy Baby groups their delectable into stages.

Stage 1: Starting Solids

Stage 2: Simple Combos for 6+ Months

Stage 3: Meals for 7+ Months  

Since I have no clue how old your beebs and tots are, please post your stage preference in your post. If you don't, I will hunt you down anyway, but I'd prefer you make it easy on me.

Meal kits will include the best and yummiest picks from Happy Baby for your particular peanut - a $40 value for each winner.

How do I win, you ask?

Leave a comment on this blog post telling us your kid(s) favorite foods and ways you try, as a responsible parent, to offer palate-building variety.

Or maybe you just serve taco pie and mac n cheese every night. We won't judge. In fact, that's a great reason to try something new. Be creative and share your fuss with us.

Here are the official rules for the giveaway:

1. Leave a comment on this blog post per the above instruction.

2. Your official comment to this blog post during the specified time frame counts as an entry.

3. Three comments will be selected as winners.

4. Comments will be open until March 31, 2010 at 5PM Central.

5. Comments will each be assigned a number and winners will be chosen randomly using Random.org.

6. Winners will be announced on April 2, 2010.

7. The prize for each winner is a Happy Baby organic foods and snacks meal kit. Please specify Stage 1m 2 or 3. ($40 value each)

GOOD LUCK!

Please check back soon for The Daily Fuss Guide to prepared baby foods. Thanks for reading and if the mood strikes, please leave a comment and share your fuss with us.

Tiny Diner

During our recent travels (Singer Island for five days and Ft. Lauderdale for 2), I had a hankering for oysters, ceviche and a crisp white wine to accompany the lovely rawness of it all. 

Generally speaking, the food in Florida (in the areas we stayed) wasn't that great and the water ... don't even get me started on the water. And so I was bound and determined to enjoy a tasty sampling of ocean delights before we headed back to the snowy midwest.

It rained our last night in Fort Laudy and so we called an audible and decided to have dinner at the hotel restaurant 3030 Ocean. Unfortunately, the only reservation we could manage was 8:15pm. Bummer. Especially since Lei is usually asleep by then and because did I mention I was STARVING.

When Leighton dines out with us, we generally do brunch or join the bluebirds for a matinee dinner in an effort to spare folks Lei's adorable meal-time antics should she decide to get sassy. Although 3030 Ocean is a hotel restaurant, it was clear that local business (pronounced BIZ-NASS') people conduct bizz-nass dinners there and entertain clients. It's crowded and sort of schmancy (one level above "fancy") but the menu had EXACTLY what I'd been craving since we'd arrived in sunny Florida.

Why not just order room service? We spent the two nights in Ft. Lauderdale in a regular old hotel room. This is really me whining about how much I loved the suite on Singer Island with rooms and a kitchen and a washer/dryer and a pretty white rolling crib for Lei.Yes. I KNOW. Boo hoo for me. That said, we weren't all about ordering room service. So there we were, starving and without the luxury of an early reservation for the schmancy hotel restaurant.  

SIDEBAR: When my blood sugar bottoms out, I turn into a three-headed monster - all of them evil. I know I'm doing it, but I can't seem to control it. NOTHING sounds good to me any more. Tears well up. I can't be forced to make a decision under any circumstance and I usually say something like "I don't even WANT to eat anymore." So imagine this meltdown compounded by my pouting about the rather unsophisticated accommodations.

We enjoyed a pre-dinner swim in the kick-ass, heated pool. Showered up and got ready for dinner. We were maybe 3% concerned that bringing Lei to dinner at 3030 was inappropriate, but given the fact that we were paying guests of the hotel and that this was THEIR restaurant, we got over it. Plus, we figured Lei would be asleep by the time we ordered hors d'oeuvres.

We wheeled her chariot into the restaurant and no one batted an eye. Well, other than the throng of diners who waved at her and told us she was gorgeous, of course. She had some bread and water with us even though I had already fed her upstairs. Then, I walked her over to the hotel lobby and sushed and wooshed her to sleep. I brought her back to the table totally passed out and put her back in the Bug. Hence the picture. We and everyone else in the restaurant enjoyed a FANTASTIC and quiet dinner.

If there is a fine line, and where does it start? Did we cross it by taking  a sleeping 11 month-old to a schmancy restaurant at 8:15?  When you can't get a sitter, what do you do? Please leave a comment and share your fuss with us.

What the Fuss? Squeezable Fruit

Build it and they will come. Or build a package to safely deliver organic squeezable fruit to your kid and companies will fill 'em.

My mom gave us treats as we headed to the airport last week for vacation. It included Plum Tots Mish Mash and Revolution Foods Mash Ups - basically mashed organic fruit in BPA free, foil-lined pouches with built in straw-type spouts. Kids can squeeze the fruit mash into their mouths while sucking from the straw.

Clearly too tough for a ten-month-old? NOPE. Lei sucked it down like a little champ. And, I have a feeling she could have done it months ago. She's been a straw-drinker for months.

So I gave Plum Tots extra points for the clever packaging, but as it turns out I have been under a rock since Lei was born. I totally missed the squeezable organic fruit revolution. I also missed the baby spacefood/MRE revolution of full meals in a pouch but you'll have to look for those in another post.

Here are your options for roughly $1 each:

1) Plum Tots Mish Mash

2) Revolution Foods Mashups

3) Happy Baby Pouches

4) Peter Rabbit Organics Fruit Snack

5) Materne Go Go Squeeze Applesauces

6) Organic Smashies Smashed Fruit and Applesauce

They are all organic, additive-free and come in BPA-free packaging. Some are only fruit, some have legumes, grains and veggies involved and a few are applesauce-centric. Click on the video to see Lei in action with some Mashups.

Lei loves Plum Tots Mish Mash, Revolution Mashups and the Happy Baby pouches. We haven't tried the others yet, but included them for your convenience. If we missed some, please let us know.

Yum!

This product review conforms to the Fuss Formula.

Have you tried squeezable smashed fruits and such? Let us know what you think. Please leave a comment and share your fuss with us.

Two Out of Three Ain't Bad

I am a work in progress.  Luckily, those around me allow for this.  I believe that I inherited a propensity to think critically from my father, and this trait is  some say irritatingly compounded by the need to question absolutely everything. Let's blame law school for the latter part.

However, I do not consider myself a cynic. Lets go with open-minded analytic instead.

So, last week we watched Food, Inc. Prior to viewing, I already knew that most of the food grown and consumed in this country is controlled much like the media by a handful of companies. I knew that animals, farmers and soy beans alike are often mistreated. And, I knew that in many depressed areas, soda, filled meats and pop tarts are all less expensive than a green pepper.

What I did not know, is that your average grocery store item was produced by one of only four companies. Your average veggie is genetically modified. Your average chicken farmer working for Tyson is $500k in mandated-equipment debt, yet only reaps an annual profit of $18k. And, your average teenager in dusty, rural New Mexico has at least three family members with Type 2 Diabetes.

I was fully yucked out by Food Inc. after learning of, and subsequently researching, a few simple truths so plainly yet brilliantly layed out in this documentary. Filmmaker Robert Kenner, with the help of experts Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto) and others, lifts the veil of the beautifully stocked grocery store and shines a critical light on the machine of mass production that takes our food from laboratory to "farm" to processing and eventually to the table.

This is a must see for anyone that eats. PERIOD. This is not your Michael Moore brand of crab ass "Aren't you disgusted with yourselves, America?" rant. Nor is it a PETA-inspired indictment of companies that mistreat animals. This documentary is a calm and candid assessment of the food industry and the money and politics that drive it to work the way it does.

This brings me to the point of this post and the way we've tried to eat in the Freeman house for years: Organic, Local, Sustainable. I say "tried" because we are very successful in the summer, but winter is another story. The Green City Market doesn't run as frequently and we get complacent ordering from Peapod. As if it doesn't matter if we eat the fruit genetically engineered by the weed killer company during the inconvenient chilly months. It takes commitment and planning to only eat a food when you are cetain of its origin. Duh.

Food, Inc. shocked us back to our commitment to eating organic, local and sustainable - in that order of importance. The rules are simple to understand and less so to follow: Food consumed in our house must fit two of the three categories and we absolutely must know where it comes from. I'd like to say that all of the food we eat is organic, local and sustainable, but we'll take two out of three. As they say ... two out of three ain't bad.

FIND LOCAL, SUSTAINABLE AND ORGANIC IN YOUR AREA

Sustainable Table | Sustainable Table celebrates local sustainable food, educates consumers on food-related issues and works to build community through food.

Local Harvest | Find farmgate sales, Community Supported Agriculture deliveries, grocery stores, farmers' markets and restaurants across America.

Eat Well Guide | Find local, sustainable, organic food in your area.

Eat Local Challenge | A group weblog focusing on the importance of locally and sustainably grown food.

100 Mile Diet | This particular challenge to only eat foods from a 100 mile radius of your home started in Vancouver, BC. But, the original book has a US counterpart. Check it out and map your 100 miles.

Edible Communities | Network of award-winning publications that celebrate local foods, season by season. Scroll down for the Edible magazine in your area.

USDA Official Site | Find a farmers' market in your area.

Have you seen Food, Inc? Did you love it, hate it? Did you learn something new? Have you changed how you eat because of it? Do you eat organic, local and sustainable or do you find it difficult to do? Please leave a comment and share your fuss with us.

What the Fuss? Feeding Frenzy Part II: Toddlerfeeding

As I mentioned yesterday, Lei's brush with disaster was the impetus for a post on all things fabulous for feeding. However, my list grew cumbersome rather quickly, so I separated my list of fantastically fussworthy feeding items out into breastfeeding and toddlerfeeding categories and numbered them to keep the confusion to a minimum.

In Feeding Frenzy Part I, I presented my list of amazing breastfeeding accoutrements. Today we're on to toddlerfeeding. Because this is Leighton's current stage, I am having a blast trying out lots of new products. Enjoy!

1) I make Leighton's food using the Beaba Babycook. I know what you're thinking ... What a pain in the ass! I'll stick with jars.I get that a lot. However, our pediatrician told us that she should eat as much table food as possible. So, my kid eats delicious dish made from scratch. Plus, I figure since Ryan cooks for us daily anyway, why should Lei eat bland, boiled meat in a jar?

The Beaba Babycook is a well-crafted appliance, spare in size, that steams and blends foods for your babe. With an all-in-one gadget like this, there's no need to make a huge mess. You can either make an event of making these meals, or toss in some of what you're having for a particular meal and freeze the rest for later. The Babycook makes it so simple, it's a meal time staple for me.

I cook for Leighton once a month and freeze the portions using item #2 below. Once frozen, I pop them into Ziploc freezer bags and we're good to go. Beef Stew and Cherub Chowder are just two hits found in #12 below. Lei likes food with hints of garlic, spices and onion and eats veggies most kids won't touch. Plus, her meals taste like real food (hmmm curious) and sometimes it's hard for me not to oversample her dish while I feed her. My mother-in-law bought the Babycook for us as a gift, which was a great savings for me because I was going to buy it anyway. It retails for $150.

2) Beaba Multiportion Food Storage Containers are perfect portion sizes. I have two, but in making a month of meals, I am going to pick up another. The retail for $20 and come in pink, orange and green. I got mine at Giggle.

3) Once Leighton's little fish teeth began peeking through her gums, we switched to Beaba silicone spoons. You can use these from the start, but I was so into the silver Tiffany spoon that my aunt gave as a shower gift that we used that and a healthy rotation of take and toss spoons until a few weeks ago. These Beaba spoons ($20 for a pack of four) are colorful implements that can really shovel it in. The handle is big enough for grown ups to get a good grip and they look so cool that I had to add them to the list.

4) We eat out quite a bit, granted we do it before six o'clock, and Phil and Ted's Me too portable highchair goes with us every time.  It has clamps that screw screw onto almost any table. Lei feels like a big shot in this chair because it allows her to be right where the action is at a conversational height. Plus, her legs dangle, which keeps her from pulling her new favorite stunt - trying to stand in the high chair. At $60, the price is a little steep, but again, we eat out often and for us, this chair is the difference between wolfing down dinner and lingering a bit after a fine meal. Last time we accidentally left it at home, we turned the car around and went back to get it.

5) Top 100 Baby Purees will get you from the very first, single food purees all the way to trickier dishes. If you are going to make your own baby food, this book is a must. $16 at Giggle.

6) I never to forget to bring my Zoli On-The-Go snack dispenser. I have forgotten to bring bottle, but whatever. The segments screw together and the top can hold formula or cereal. This colorful little item is practical and at $15, completely worth it. Incidentally, this is one of the Fussworthy items you can win this week! Enter to win.

7) Leighton has the coolest highchair - lucky little ducklet. Her Svan Highchair (tray cover and cushion too) look tremendous in our house. Our house isn't big enough to camoflauge a multi-colored, plastic masterpiece of a high chair, so wood was the way to go for us. The Svan is Scandinavian-designed, finely crafted and adjusts from six months through the teenage years which helped justify the expense. The chair and tray cover is $260 and the cushion is $40. Both were gifts from my mother-in-law but I was intent on buying them anyway once we graduated from the bebePod. Love the Svan!

8) My Udaipur Burp & Bib set has not yet arrived, but I can't wait. It's too cool and Indian fabrics are so hot right now. We don't really need burp cloths per se any more, but I'm sure I will find plenty of uses for them. In preparing this post, I saw that there is a matching crib set. I'm so glad I didn't see that before I placed my last order or I wouldn't have been able to help myself and we DO NOT need anymore bedding right now. Pick up this set of two burp cloths and matching bib for $39.

9) Leighton hates, HATES, wearing a bib, but we try. The Bumkins SuperBib is a wonderful compromise for us. The fabric is waterproof, it covers her, has a pocket and the best part is that I can wash it in the sink and hang it on the cabinet knob to dry. At $8 each, we rotate two and love them.

10) My mom has the cute pink Bumbo at her house. I opted for the bebPOD Plus (plus because it comes with a tray and a toy) - mostly because the red, shiny, molded, foam seat struck my fancy. And, after a little while, Lei could pull the tray, clearly an afterthought for the Bumbo people,right off with less than herculean strength. These seats only last for a few months and so it's a nice-to-have, for sure at $60. But, Lei was able to sit and participate in lots of activites she otherwise wouldn't have with out the bebePod.

11) Elegant Baby Bowl and Spoon set is fun and functional and comes in both pink and blue. The suction works and so it was an easy addition to the list - a fussworthy find for $15. One warning - the animal on the end of the spoon may be distracting because it's so darn cute.

12) Cooking for Baby has fancy meals for baby. My First Beef Stew is Lei's absolute favorite! This book makes it so easy to cook amazing fare for your teeny ones. This Lisa Barnes cookbook can be found with two different covers. Pick it up at Amazon or WIlliams Sonoma (green cover) for $20.

13) Take and Toss Straw Sippers made this list because we HATE sippy cups. Leighton thinks they're dumb and, frankly, I agree. If Europeans go right from bottle to cup, we can too. Lei prefers to ease the transition with a straw, and I'm fine with that. Cheapy Cheap at $3.49 for a four-pack.

14) The best part of the Combi Ergo Spoon and Fork Set is that baby can grab it, but I really picked it because we eat out a lot (did I mention that already?)and the set comes with a plastic case to protect from germs. Totally worth it for $6 at Giggle. This is the other Fussworthy item you can win this week! Enter to win.

This was fun! We welcome any comments you have good or bad about any of the products featured here. Feel free to mention any that we may have overlooked too! You never know what will turn up as the next Fussworthy giveaway.

This product review conforms to the Fuss Formula.

As you may have gathered, a number of my items can be found at Giggle. It's my favorite baby store and I registered there when I was pregnant. I love it so much I contacted them to be an affiliate advertiser. In the interest of full disclosure, The Daily Fuss does receive a small percentage of purchases made at Giggle when clicking through from our Giggle banner. Your support is certainly appreciated. Happy shopping!

What the Fuss? Freestyle

I work. I mostly work from home. This work requires me to schedule client meetings every week. Sometimes work requires travel. Still, I love my job and my situation.

This makes breastfeeding less convenient than it would be if I didn't work and never left the house without Leighton. However, I live in the real world and the truth is that I may have already given up on breastfeeding if not for my pump. I can't live without it.

I have a Medela Freestyle breast pump. It is the first pump I have ever tried and it's fantastic. I have seen other pumps - in action - and I believe that mine is the most effective and efficient pump ever.

It weighs less than a pound and fits in the palm of your hand, your purse, suitcase etc. The two speeds for expression are fantastic. That is a feature I couldn't do without. At the time I bought it, this pump retailed for $379.00. I got mine on eBay, new in the box for $280.00. It's worth it at full price, but I had time to spare and was on the prowl for a deal. Yay for me!

I spent the past two days in Minneapolis at my company headquarters for a team meeting. This was the first time I'd been away from Leighton for more than a handful of hours. I went to the fancy pharmacy up the block and bought the Medela cooler bag that holds six 8oz glass baby bottles and two more ice packs. 

I use the glass because they stay colder longer and heat easily by running under hot water. Plus, I think the plastic bottles smell and taste plastic-ish. We drink Oberweiss milk because it comes in glass bottles, so why shouldn't Lei's milk get the same treatment?

At five months, Leighton is still nursing every three hours with the exception of night time sleep. She'll go for six hours easily. She takes in roughly four ounces per feeding, maybe a bit less. I'm using the amount I get when pumping to surmise how much she may be getting. So I figure she eats 28oz each day, give or take a few. I was confident that my cooler bag will handle twelve feedings and I wasn't scheduled to be gone for the full twelve.

The whole experience was much better than I had envisioned. I pumped at the airport. They don't have privacy rooms for feeding at Midway, so I sat in the ticketing area with my Hooter Hider and got to work. I had to pump before I went through security because I needed to check the bag with breastmilk. I put the beginnings of my stash in the cooler, used the Medela wipees to clean my pump parts and checked my bag.

Within three hours, I had reached my destination and was roaming the halls of our five-building headquarters for a place to set up my milking operation. Every building on our campus had at least one privacy room with a fridge, sink, chair, ethernet connection, magazines etc. It was a little slice of heaven to slip away, every three hours for a legally protected activity, knowing that I was still doing the best thing I could for my baby who was hundreds of miles away.

The Freestyle has a strap situation so that you can pump both sides simultaneously and hands-free. I don't always use it that way. In fact, if I pump at home to increase my stash, it's at night and I just do one side at a time. I can move it around and manipulate it to get more milk out that way. But, when I'm short on time or need to get back to the meeting, I can do both sides in 8-10 minutes. That is truly incredible.

By the end of my trip, I had five, full glass bottles clinking around in my bag. I packed the cooler into my suitcase and informed everyone handling my bag that there was precious cargo on board. The TSA agent assured me that no one intended to rifle through my bag to steal the fruits of my labor.

I hope those of you who are pregnant, working mothers-to-be seriously consider breastfeeding. It's rewarding and great for your baby. Working, even outside the home, doesn't need to be an obstacle to participating in what could be one of your favorite parts of motherhood.

This product review conforms to the Fuss Formula.

We would love to hear about your experiences - good or bad. Please post a comment and share your fuss with us!

Farticle

I'm not one for fart jokes or bathroom humor in general. But people can change. Can't they?

 

We've been introducing solid foods to Leighton over the past few weeks. Rice cereal, sweet potatoes, pears, applesauce and peas make for daily entertainment - not just the feeding frenzy, but the poops.

 

What was once a viscous and water-soluble goop, is now something of a peanut butter consistency - sticky and odiferous.

 

And then there's the gas. Oh the gas. I refer to Lei as Toots Tooterton, Tooter McDougal and Tootie Tooterelli on occasion.

 

We are visiting my parents in Milwaukee for the weekend and while changing Leighton's diaper yesterday, I casually stated that "If Leighton were a cartoon character, she'd be Fart Simpson."

 

We couldn't help ourselves after that. It was on. I nearly peed my pants several times throughout the course of our Tom Foolery. I knocked on my parents' bedroom door in the middle of the night to tell them that "if Leighton were a wine cooler, she'd be Fartles & James." Damn. I'm funny.

 

Maybe we aren't all that clever. Read the full list of goofishness and judge for yourself. Any semi-sleep deprived parent, whose kid has been afflicted with a case of the devil farts, should certainly find this mildly amusing at the very least. If you aren't impressed, ingest copious amounts of red wine and re-read.

 

Here goes.

• If Leighton were a cartoon character, she’d be Fart Simpson
• If she were a vehicle, she’d be a go-fart
• If she were a big box store, she’d be K-Fart or Wal-Fart
• If she were former #15 of the Green Bay Packers she’d be Fart Starr
• If she were a rebellious slave against the Roman Empire, she’d be Farticus
• If she needed a new muffler, she’d go to Advanced Auto Farts
• If she were a folk singer/songwriter, she wouldn’t be Paul Simon, she’d be Fart Garfunkel
• If she were part of a rockin’ 80’s chick band, it would have been Fart
• If she cuts an album, it may quickly climb the Billboard Farts
• She may graduate one day from the school of Liberal Farts
• If she were the Detroit Tigers offensive coordinator, she’d be Mike Fartz
• If she were a Spartan, she’d hail from Farta
• She loves the Midwest and is so pleased to live in The Fartland
• If she mistook a playable ball for a foul, she’d be Steve Fartman
• If she were a candy, she’d be Sweetfarts
• Her favorite form of public transportation in the Bay Area is FART
• If she were a breakfast snack, she’d be Pop Farts
• If she were an Amazonian tribeswoman, her weapon of choice would be blow farts
• Her favorite outdoor game is lawn farts
• If she were a track star and jumped the gun, she’d be a false fart
• Her favorite way to order off the menu is à la fart
• If she were the daughter of Zeus and Leto and twin sister of Apollo, she’d be Fartemis
• If she were triple fat goose down, she’d be a farter jacket
• If she were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, she may be Jimmy Farter
• If she were a wine cooler, she’d be Fartles & James
• If she owned the Lake Park Bistro, she’d be a Fartalotta
• If she were a 50’s TV show about a government agent, she’d be Get Fart
• When she turns 1 next march, she’ll invite her friends to her birthday farty
• If she were plaid, she’d be a fartan
• When traveling by plane, she prefers an early defarture
• When it comes to clothing, the prefers Gymboree to Farters

The joke has gone on eleven hours too long, but I'm sure we will have at least one more to add once we sit down to dinner this evening.

 

Now that you have the faticulars, please feel free to post and funnies we may have missed.

What the Fuss? Hooter Hider

At first I thought, "Thanks for the apron-boob-cover-smock" when I received it as a baby shower gift. Oh. Such a fool!

I can't even count on my fingers and toes how many times I have used my Bebe Au Lait Nursing Cover A.K.A Hooter Hider. It's breastfeeding awareness month and so I felt the need to mention how handy this little item is. Thirty-five dollars of fun and I have given several as gifts just this year.

The Hooter Hider fabric is hip, it covers your baby whilst feeding and it folds up to fit in your diaper bag. Plus, it holds itself open so you can see your baby and stay breezy too.

Personally, I believe we should be able to feed our babies wherever and whenever in whatever manner we please, with or without coverage.

Still, sometimes - especially in a busy, crowded place, even baby needs to block out the world. (In fact, I saw a mom using her Hooter Hider on the Amtrak this week just so her baby could nap). Moreover, anything that encourages even a shy mom to breastfeed her beeb in public is a boon to mother-kind.

I have fed Leighton by the pool, in the park, at the zoo, in a restaurant and at Ravinia and many times, my Hooter Hider has been a crucial part of making us both comfortable.

Cheers to you Bebe Au Lait! Two boobs up!

This product review conforms to the Fuss Formula.

TIP: To celebrate five years of supreme Hooter Hiderness, purchase one Hooter Hider at full price and get a second for $5. FIVE BUCKS!?! Yep. Just choose two Hooter Hiders and use coupon code HHFOR5 during checkout.

Fussworthy Food: Ultimate Breakfast Sandwich

My incredible husband made this tasty little number for me for breakfast this morning and after taking a bite or two, I decided that this Ultimate Breakfast Sandwich is definitely a Fussworthy Food.

Simply, this is the best breakfast sandwich I've ever had. It's a flavor explosion. You won't be disappointed. This recipe serves two.

 

Ingredients

4 slices whole grain sourdough bread

6 slices center cut bacon

butter or cooking spray

blue stilton (We use Neal's Yard Colston Bassett Stilton)

4 eggs

fig preserves (We use Bonne Maman Fig Preserves)

To Prepare

Make the bacon on the stove top following the directions on the package. Center cut bacon is meatier and leaner so the cooked bacon is large and flavorful, rather than charred and crispy. Set aside.

Toast four thin slices of whole grain sourdough bread. Fry two eggs over easy using butter (or Pam Olive Oil Cooking Spray). Lightly butter the toast and spread with fig preserves. Gently lay one egg atop each slice of toast. Place roughly one and a quarter pieces of bacon on top of each egg. Crumble the stilton over your masterpiece and heat one open-face sandwich at a time in the toaster oven to melt the cheese.

Enjoy!

Fussworthy Food: Crunchy Summer Salad with Ginger Fig Dressing

Crunchy Summer Salad is a great dish concocted by Daily Fuss. Why you ask?

1) It's delicious.

2) You only need a knife, cutting board, blender and a few spare minutes to whip it up.

3) It keeps in the fridge for a several days without getting soggy so you can make lots and keep going back to the fridge, even whilst balancing a wee tot on your hip.

4) If you need to lose a few or (like me) are not back down to your pre-baby fighting weight, this salad may help. It's healthy, loaded with soy and veggies and spare in calories.

I must apologize for the small portion in the picture. I had nearly completed a three-day Crunchy Summer Salad binge when it occurred to me that the recipe would make a fabu post and I should take a picture. 

Ingredients

• 1 bag cooked, frozen edamame
• 4 ears corn
• 1 bell pepper (I used 1/2 red and 1/2 green)
• 1 1/2 large kohlrabi
• 1 clove garlic
• 2-3 sugar-cube sized chunks fresh ginger
• Hazelnut Oil (I use La Tourangelle Hazelnut Oil )
• Fig dressing (I use Stonewall Kitchen Balsamic Fig Dressing)
• Red wine vinegar

To Prepare

Cook the corn and cut the kernels from the cobs. Put the edamame in a collander and run warm water over it to thaw. Chop the kohlrabi and peppers into cubes. (Be careful. Cutting the cubes too small will diminish the crunch factor). Add everything together in a bowl.

In a mini food processor or blender, mix one parts each hazelnut oil and fig dressing with two parts red wine vinegar. You should have a slightly cloudy mix, thick enough to cover the veggies, but thin enough that it you can barely see it. Drop in the garlic and ginger and blend it into the dressing.

Pour just enough dressing to cover the salad with some extra at the bottom.  Enjoy!

Variations

• I usually add sunflower sprouts from the farmers market. I just didn't have any left when I made this batch.
• Sunflower seeds would be good too.
• You can add vidalia onions or tomoatoes. But beware, the onions can overwhelm and the tomatoes don't keep quite as long.